Make such a denial!  And was it the fact that he could wish to do so,—­that he should think of such falsehood, and even meditate on the perpetration of such cowardice?  He had held that young girl to his heart on that very morning.  He had sworn to her, and had also sworn to himself, that she should have no reason for distrusting him.  He had acknowledged most solemnly to himself that, whether for good or for ill, he was bound to her; and could it be that he was already calculating as to the practicability of disowning her?  In doing so must he not have told himself that he was a villain?  But in truth he made no such calculation.  His object was to banish the subject, if it were possible to do so; to think of some answer by which he might create a doubt.  It did not occur to him to tell the countess boldly that there was no truth whatever in the report, and that Miss Dale was nothing to him.  But might he not skilfully laugh off the subject, even in the presence of Lady Julia?  Men who were engaged did so usually, and why should not he?  It was generally thought that solicitude for the lady’s feelings should prevent a man from talking openly of his own engagement.  Then he remembered the easy freedom with which his position had been discussed throughout the whole neighbourhood of Allington, and felt for the first time that the Dale family had been almost indelicate in their want of reticence.  “I suppose it was done to tie me the faster,” he said to himself, as he pulled out the ends of his cravat.  “What a fool I was to come here, or indeed to go anywhere, after settling myself as I have done.”  And then he went down into the drawing-room.

It was almost a relief to him when he found that he was not charged with his sin at once.  He himself had been so full of the subject that he had expected to be attacked at the moment of his entrance.  He was, however, greeted without any allusion to the matter.  The countess, in her own quiet way, shook hands with him as though she had seen him only the day before.  The earl, who was seated in his arm-chair, asked some one, out loud, who the stranger was, and then, with two fingers put forth, muttered some apology for a welcome.  But Crosbie was quite up to that kind of thing.  “How do, my lord?” he said, turning his face away to some one else as he spoke; and then he took no further notice of the master of the house.  “Not know him, indeed!” Crippled though he was by his matrimonial bond, Crosbie felt that, at any rate as yet, he was the earl’s equal in social importance.  After that, he found himself in the back part of the drawing-room, away from the elder people, standing with Lady Alexandrina, with Miss Gresham, a cousin of the de Courcys, and sundry other of the younger portion of the assembled community.

“So you have Lady Dumbello here?” said Crosbie.

“Oh, yes; the dear creature!” said Lady Margaretta.  “It was so good of her to come, you know.”

“She positively refused the Duchess of St Bungay,” said Alexandrina.  “I hope you perceive how good we’ve been to you in getting you to meet her.  People have actually asked to come.”